


you love (the story still ends)

by therewasagirl



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, Mythology - Freeform, Ships to be added - Freeform, Soulmates AU, soulmates through time
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-26
Updated: 2016-02-26
Packaged: 2018-05-23 06:54:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6108616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/therewasagirl/pseuds/therewasagirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>there is no absolution for the fallen</p>
            </blockquote>





	you love (the story still ends)

**Author's Note:**

> title and summary source: http://lostcap.tumblr.com/  
> you love him (the story still ends)  
> there is no absolution for the fallen, only the dying | p.d

 

> _I’ve told our story a hundred times_  
>  In different places and with changing faces  
>  We’re warriors, kings, gods and the moon and sun  
>  But in every story  
>  In every life  
>  The ending never changes
> 
> _You’re all the inspiration I need // s.j (via[achillestiel](http://achillestiel.tumblr.com/))_

It happened like this.  ( _or so it is said...)._  

The first time, in long times past, you didn’t even know what you were doing.

You were a creature of the great blue depths after all, and so young in the world, so new. You didn’t know as much as you wanted to of the watery world you came from, let alone the sun-dried spaces above…

And you’d never seen one quite like  _him_  before.

You could not have ever known what chain of events you would be sucked into. Your curiosity was as sweet as your heart, just as genuine and that was all you knew. You lived of such a fierce desire to love the world in all its forms. Why should you not have looked beyond the one you were born in? And because that was truth, you were not blamed ( _for the beginning. What happened after is a different story_ ). Blame is a fickle creature - nobody even knows who he was born from. He exists alone of his own will in the world, but no one ever laid him at your feet for this. Not even the reckless selfish beings that called themselves gods in those times, titan-born Olympians.

And yet, no one ever understood you either.

 _Why_ , Nereid? Why did you seek out the parched openness of the world above? What madness drove you? What will? There is no life for those of your kind up there Nereid; did not  _one_  of your forty-nine sisters tell you?

But perhaps they did.

Oh, they did, didn’t they! And you dared the unknown anyway. Perhaps you were not as innocent as those who didn’t know you liked to think, were you, sea nymph of the deep? Perhaps you dared the world you did not belong in out of your own volition, as you dared Death to come and take you; as you dared the dark to eat you fiercely [[1]](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6108616/chapters/14001139#_ftn1). None knew your mind Nereid, ( _few know it even now_ ) because none saw you coming. None ever stopped to think of you.  

Now they only utter your name in whispers.

( _You used to smile and there was such depth in your eyes Nereid, that none dared look at them too long. Because you were always both. You were the innocent being, sweet of youth, and you were also daughter of the sea. Nothing_ made _you into anything._

 _It is not the storm that makes the ocean dangerous_.)

But where did it start? How? Was it destiny, or was it will? Was it a far crueler game?

They say the Fates delight in weaving the threads of gods and mortals alike, but even the almightily Three Sisters denied having ever tugged at the string of your life that way. It was something stranger at work for you.

You were touched by Chance that first time, though you did not see it. ( _Choice came later, when you were bruised and bloody._ )

And on that day when it all started, it was the bright sun that drew you. You saw its fiery shine flirting with the surface of the sea, saw light breaking into a thousand colors and you started to wonder about a world you were not made for. You swam up, up into the light and pushed your fingers out of the water and into the air, broke the barriers.

The feel of it – the absence of the sea’s kiss you’ve known all your life - was so strange that you pulled your fingers back immediately. But it was not enough to deter you.

You wanted to look. You wanted to see the sun and the world beyond that your sisters speak of.

So you did.

Your eyes were meant to see that world. It was far too bright for you. But you persisted, resisted the sting because you wanted to know what waited for you beyond it. And after… after you saw the blazing red of the clouds, soaking in the last rays of the sun and they were beauty to you. Unspeakable marvel. You saw the faded pinks and yellows, more colors than the coral shores of the south and you... oh Nereid, you fell in love, didn’t you?

You fell in love with that foreign world.

And you dared.

You dared to  _stay_  and look at the great expanse of your water home from above, as the drylanders look at it. And it was flat, the waves making the ocean look like it took deep heaving breaths one after the other. It reflected the warmth of the sun like a great mirror, as Apollo’s great star lowered itself into the sea at the edge of the horizon. You knew, even then, that the sea would not swallow it whole and keep it safe in its bosom, even though it looked like it would. ( _You would have seen it. A jewel that bright and warm would have called you_ )

The heavy splash of the water somewhere close called your attention and you turned.

Cliffs rose from the sea, reaching high like knives of bone, but were covered in green. ( _Soft green, of the likes that is rare beneath;  greet tinted with gold. Everything is gold up there, you thought._ ). You looked higher; into the vaulted sky and its deepening blue shade and that... that is when you saw him.

He was a speck of a thing, no bigger than a clownfish from this far. He ran off the edge of the highest cliff... and he fell as fast as your thoughts, as if the great sea hungered for him.

You chased his fall with your eyes until he broke the surface of the sea... and he did not come up.

You’d never moved so fast in your young life, had you Nereid? Because you thought, ‘ _I am not meant to survive without the protection of the sea close about me. He cannot be meant to survive the ocean’s bosom in the same way_.’ And you swam to him and grabbed him by the wrist, away from currents and the rocks at the bottom.

The _warmth_ of his skin astounded you.

You’d never met a human before, though your sisters sometimes mentioned them. They spoke of them as lesser paintings of the immortal gods. Imitations of truer life. But you, Nereid, had never met a creature that was even the slightest bit unlike you, mortal or otherwise, so when his head broke the surface of the sea, you swam away, but not too far. You were too young in the world to know fear.

He did not seem afraid either, though surprise and weariness crossed his face.

He was young. His eyes seemed to say so to you. He was beautiful; that you knew.

And he was smiling.

You remained silent. Your kept your small flat nose beneath the waves, your arms spread out, tail at the ready to swim away. But you didn’t.

You  _didn’t_ , Nereid.

When faced with the unknown and the foreign, you did not flinch in fear or judgment. You stared back.

( _They thoughts it was ignorance , inexperience. But what do they know of you_?)

‘Hello.’

His words brushed by your ear so strangely. His voice was unlike any sound you’d ever heard. His words sounded different from your own tongue and yet you understood them in the way of immortal beings. Understood them without being able to speak back.

He swam closer. The calls of his brothers did not faze him. You heard them too, such strange sounds. Coarse to your ears, so used to the murmur of the sea and the melody of your sisters’ songs.

But his voice, though rough, was not quite unpleasant.

It was new.

‘Are you a sea nymph? Do you have a name?’

He edged closer with every question. You’d thought men were meant to be more weary of your kind. But he was not. He approached and you did not move. Not even when he was close enough that you could feel him shifting the water beneath with his feet, trying to stay afloat. Such a careless swimmer, like a small jellyfish or a child. It was rather endearing.

He kept looking at you and you wondered  if he found the sight of you as strange as you found the sight of him.

You had no names for the colors you saw on him: his hair, lighter than your own ( _everyone’s hair was lighter than your own. Octopus ink was the only thing as black as the heavy mane of your hair_ ) His skin too, so strange – such a peculiar shade, so vulnerably unchangeable, where yours was near translucent and already absorbing the shades of the sea in the shallows with the same ease as it did when you were down in the depths.

His eyes were familiar. Of a blue that you knew. The blue of your home, but not quite. No, the blue of  _his_  home, perhaps. The color of water there by the shores, where the ocean was friendly and light.

He  _was_ strange to your eyes, but you could not stop looking. And he was as enchanted by you as you were astounded by him.

‘You have such magnificent eyes’ he told you. ‘How did you come by them?’

‘My mother gave them to me.’

It was what you wanted to tell him, but no sound came out of your lips. Your mouth was not made for speaking above water. But you wanted to speak to him. You wanted to touch him again too, so you did.

You fingers reached out and he reached back. He was smooth and coarse both and his beating heart was strong beneath your cold fingers.

You wanted him, you realized, even though you’d never known want before. You wanted him to hear your voice and you wanted him to touch you again and smile at you again. You wanted him to hear your song.

You _wanted_ him.

So you kissed him.

He shivered with the waves when you did, almost went under. You smiled, kissed him again and this time he kissed back and it was... It was the warmth of his world meeting the slippery dangerous heart of your own. You let go of his lips and you let yourself sink under the surface so you could fill your lungs with water again, feel it in your mouth, your veins, your head. You were starting to get lightheaded, but perhaps it wasn’t just because you could not breathe the same air he did. You heard yourself laugh and you were happy, weren’t you Nereid. You’d touched beauty for the first time and it felt like a miracle.

You did not expect him to appear beneath the waves, arms spread out and eyes open despite the burn of the salty sea, just to look at you there.

You smiled, laughed as your hair fanned out and you reached to kiss him again.

But how could you know, Nereid? How could you know that you made him forget? How could you know of what came before you, of the dangers of creatures like you. He’s been taught to fear beautiful women all his life, but it never quite took with him. He’s been taught that creatures like you are born to kill creatures like him. That you were always  _supposed_  to pull him beneath the waves, because you were beautiful and because you wanted him, and he was always supposed to forget to say no.

Forget that he is as unfit for your world as you are for his.

And it didn’t matter that you did not ask to be beautiful, or to be born in the sea, to live forever, or to not know how men breathe until they stop doing it[[2]](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6108616/chapters/14001139#_ftn2).

And that’s how it began, your story. It would span years, centuries, because through them you will find and touch each other again. And the truth of it will always start like this: the first time, you drowned him.

 

 

[1] Emily O'Neill, from “Kismet,”

[2] Deathless, Catherynne M. Valente


End file.
